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US President Barack Obama warned that new "tactical" disagreements loomed between Israel and Washington, but vowed to leverage his administration's "creative powers" in the cause of peace.
Obama, who has had a difficult relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke at length on the stalled peace process at a fundraiser for his 2012 re-election campaign with the Democratic friends of Israel group.
The Palestinian leadership will continue its pursuit of support for an appeal to the UN for membership and the recognition of statehood, and Salam Fayyad will head the new unity government, President Mahmoud Abbas told the Lebanese satellite channel LBC on Monday night.
In the absence of negotiations with Israel, Abbas said, a move at the UN would be the chosen course of action. If the United States, Israel and Europe have objections to a UN appeal, he continued "they must come up with an alternative."
Salam Fayyad will announce his intention to refuse to head the new unity government if he is offered the post, sources close to the appointed West Bank Prime Minister told Ma'an.
Fayyad has publicly said he would accept whatever parties decide in Cairo.
Fatah's central committee nominated Fayyad as the party's choice for the position, a party official said following a meeting of the Fatah leadership in Ramallah on June 11.
Hamas swiftly rejected the proposal.
U.S. President Barack Obama reassured Jewish donors on Monday he strongly supports Israel, stressing close ties between the United States and the Jewish state, but also emphasizing that changes in the Middle East will require a fresh look at the region.
"Both the United States and Israel are going to have to look at this new landscape with fresh eyes. It's not going to be sufficient for us just to keep on doing the same things," Obama said at the first of two big-ticket fund-raisers where he was speaking on Monday evening.
The bulletproof van is extra.
Welcome to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Jewish settlements built on land Palestinians seek for a state are opening their gates to foreign tourists and Israeli visitors.
A one-day tour, booked through a regional settler council, costs $50. An additional $80 secures the armoured bus.
Palestinians, or "local Arabs" in the words of settlers who spoke to one group of visitors, are not on the itinerary.
The reopening of the Gaza Strip's main border crossing with Egypt brought widespread relief to Palestinians suffering from a four-year blockade. But one month later, some 20,000 people are on a wait list and despair is growing in this crowded territory.
Residents still must apply for travel permits, and the first available dates to cross are in late August. Frustrated travelers gather at the crossing each day, clutching medical reports, foreign residency permits and university registration documents in hopes of persuading the authorities to let them through.
Israeli and Turkish officials have been holding secret direct talks to try to solve the diplomatic crisis between the two countries, a senior official in Jerusalem said. The negotiations are receiving the Americans' support.
A source in the Turkish Foreign Ministry and a U.S. official confirmed that talks are being held, though in Israel the prime minister and foreign minister's aides declined to comment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surprised many of the participants in the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday when he embarked on a monologue praising the idea of parting from the Palestinians and in relinquishing portions of the West Bank. Netanyahu said the number of Palestinians and Jews between the Jordan River and the sea "is irrelevant" and that it's more important to "preserve a solid Jewish majority inside the State of Israel."
A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found the majority of Palestinians would prefer Salam Fayyad as prime minister and Mahmoud Abbas as president.
The results of the poll, released Monday, also showed that reconciliation talks had improved the public perception of Hamas more than Fatah.
Former IDF chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said that a Palestinian state is "inevitable," and that Israel must take an active stance in seeking to reengage the Palestinian leadership in order to avoid a unilaterally declared Palestine in the UN this September, Army Radio reported Monday.
Speaking at an event in Toronto, Ashkenazi said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government could still avoid the UN Palestinian state bid if Israel opened up negotiations again with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The government demanded that former Mossad chief Meir Dagan turn in his diplomatic passport, an unusual request that follows controversial remarks by Dagan in which he criticized the country's leadership for its treatment of the Iranian threat, Channel 2 reported.
Dagan had requested to keep the passport because of a slate of upcoming trips he had planned outside of the country, but his request was denied, according to the report.
The diplomatic passport offers, among other benefits, diplomatic immunity.
Imagine if hundreds of 18-year-olds were to inform the government and the chief of staff this summer that they will not enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.
The Palestinian strategy to attain statehood is making significant progress in certain international political circles, but still lacks the necessary coordination and cohesion to bear the desired results.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have succeeded in unleashing the usual anti-Palestinian arsenal that Israeli hasbara has been using on Palestinian aspirations.
Israel is confronting increasingly virulent worldwide challenges to its legitimacy.
An expanding chorus of politicians, journalists and academics relentlessly denounces the Jewish state as a racist, apartheid abomination. The resemblance between their shrill diatribes and the rhetoric of anti-Semitism during the past 2,000 years is not coincidental.
Palestine may soon become the newest nation on the planet.
Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion tried to reassure Israelis that Palestinians would never return to their homes. "We must do everything to ensure they never do return… The old will die and the young will forget," he said. He was wrong; the word ‘forget' isn't in the Palestinians' lexicon. For 63 long years, they've borne hardships, suffered humiliation and fought for freedom with nothing but stones and bare hands. But, sadly, they not only face a cruel adversary, their own leaders have let them down.
No one knows the precise plans of the Palestinian Authority (PA) vis-a-vis September: Will President Mahmoud Abbas declare a Palestinian state within recognized borders and ask that it be admitted as a full member of the UN - or not? Perhaps Abbas himself does not know. Now political leaders often make decisions alone or in consultation with a small group of advisers. As in so many matters political, however, the Palestinian leadership finds itself in a unique situation.
For nearly three years now, since the demise of negotiations between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, there have been no serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The reasons center on the apparent recognition by both Abbas and Olmert's successor, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, that the gaps separating them on issues of substance are too wide to justify the political risks entailed in rejoining a serious negotiations effort.
The period from now until September is going to be crowded with ideas and proposals aimed at achieving two objectives. First, these will seek to head off the Palestinian plan to take the conflict to the United Nations for discussion and ask for recognition of the Palestinian state and membership at the world body. Second, these proposals will try to ensure a resumption of the bilateral negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.
Facing US lawmakers on Capitol Hill in late May, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu did not even attempt to wrap an elegant coating around his undiplomatic mocking of the uprisings sweeping the Arab World. Comparing the current situation in many Arab states to Israel, he left nothing to the imagination.
“My friends, you don‘t need to do nation building in Israel. We have already built,” Netanyahu said, as the lawmakers joined him in laughter. “You don’t need to export democracy to Israel. We’ve already got it.”
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/19754
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/19754
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/19754
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] http://www.americantaskforce.org/atfp_sixth_annual_gala
[6] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=398439
[7] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=398407
[8] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=398299
[9] http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/obama-tells-jewish-donors-he-strongly-backs-israel/
[10] http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/settlers-cultivate-wbank-tourism-to-tighten-grip-on-land/
[11] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/in-gaza-border-opening-brings-little-relief-1551887.html
[12] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-and-turkey-holding-secret-direct-talks-to-mend-diplomatic-rift-1.368792
[13] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-israel-needs-to-separate-from-the-palestinians-1.368795
[14] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=398523
[15] http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=225726
[16] http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=225663
[17] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-idf-is-leading-israel-to-destruction-1.368836
[18] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=225860
[19] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=225844
[20] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=225845
[21] http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/middle-east-peace-needs-fresh-thinking-1.824191
[22] http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article458350.ece
[23] http://www.bitterlemons.org/inside.php?id=98
[24] http://www.bitterlemons.org/inside.php?id=99
[25] http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/470078
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